Africa's great spotted cats stalk closer to safeguards: On Tuesday the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced that all African leopards may qualify for "endangered" status under the Endangered Species Act. The Center for Biological Diversity and partners petitioned for the leopards' protection earlier this year.

In part due to trophy hunting by Americans, leopards risk extinction across their African range. A 1982 legal loophole has let hundreds of their bodies be imported yearly without proper government or scientific scrutiny.

"Leopards in Asia and northern Africa have long been recognized as endangered -- we must extend protection to all leopards across Africa," said Sarah Uhlemann, director of the Center's International program.

If we're going to defeat the worst policies coming out of the Trump administration, we must stand together and speak with a single voice of resistance, power and resolve.

Donald Trump is an unprecedented threat to our nation's democracy, health, wildlife and environment. He must not be allowed to dismantle the Environmental Protection Agency, gut the Clean Air Act and Endangered Species Act, conduct mass deportations, eliminate regulations protecting poor communities from pollution, take away our reproductive freedom, or force millions to live in fear.

Please take a moment to join this movement: Sign our pledge of resistance and stay tuned for details about our Earth2Trump cross-country tour in January with rallies, music and chances to join other allies in the fight. And consider donating to the Center's work to fight Trump at every turn -- your support's needed now more than ever.

Study: Pollinators Desperately Need Tighter Pesticide Rules

A new study in Science says tighter pesticide regulation is crucial to reversing the dramatic population declines of bees, butterflies and other pollinators. The study comes on the heels of the most comprehensive assessment of the world's pollinators, which found that 40 percent of pollinating insects are threatened with extinction.

"The science is clearer by the day: To save butterflies and bees from extinction, we must overcome our culture's dangerous and totally unsustainable addiction to pesticides," said Kelsey Kopec, a native pollinator researcher at the Center. Read more.

New Endangered Species Mural at Standing Rock

In support of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe's campaign of resistance to the Dakota Access pipeline, the Center and artist Roger Peet have installed a large, colorful mural of the beautiful Dakota skipper -- a rare, federally protected prairie butterfly -- at the Oceti Sakowin camp, where hundreds of tribes and allies have gathered in peaceful protest.

This mural -- painted on a structure providing critical shelter for indigenous media collectives -- is meant to show that in addition to threatening people, water and sacred places, the pipeline will also kill numerous endangered species like the Dakota skipper.

Said the Center's Tierra Curry, "Respecting the diversity of the Earth's cultures and people is intrinsically connected to protecting its plants and animals."

For thousands of years flat-tailed horned lizards have graced Southern California's deserts. But the past few decades have been a different story: Due to off-road vehicles, relentless development and increased predation, they're now at serious risk of disappearing for good.

The Center petitioned the state Fish and Game Commission in 2014 to protect these lizards under the California Endangered Species Act, and on Dec. 8 the commissioners will at last decide whether to throw a lifeline to these rare and prehistoric creatures.

Shrouded in secrecy, the Fish and Wildlife Service removed another Mexican gray wolf from the wild last month. The capture of the wolf -- a male suspected of killing cattle on federal and state lands in east-central Arizona -- exacerbates the extinction risk of the Southwest's unique gray wolves, a subspecies that has already seen at least 11 deaths and one other removal in 2016. Only 97 animals remain in Arizona and New Mexico. The capture has left this male wolf's mate alone in the wild.

After a petition from the Center and allies, the Fish and Wildlife Service this week took a first step toward again protecting lesser prairie chickens under the Endangered Species Act, admitting the rare birds may need safeguards. A protection decision is due next summer.

The struggle to save these dancing grouses of the Southwest has been long and convoluted. Most recently federal protection granted in 2014 was overturned after oil interests and local governments sued. But voluntary conservation efforts have not recovered the birds, which remain severely threatened by fossil fuel development, cropland conversion, grazing and climate change.

"We support voluntary efforts to protect these birds' habitat," said Noah Greenwald, the Center's endangered species director, "but they must be backstopped by the Endangered Species Act."

Reindeer, known as caribou in North America, have been around since the time of woolly mammoths and saber-toothed cats. Finely adapted to life in the circumpolar world, reindeer thrive in subzero temperatures with the aid of a specialized coat of hollow, air-filled hairs for insulation. They can run about 48 mph when alarmed and and have the longest annual migration of any land mammal at 3,000 miles.

Sadly reindeer have experienced a 60 percent decline in the past three decades due to climate change and habitat destruction.